


Field of Dreams

by Backwoulds



Series: Blood On My Name [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel & Vessel Interactions, Angst, Apocalypse, Emotional Hurt, Gabriel Being Gabriel, Gabriel is Bad at Feelings, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, POV Second Person, Reader-Insert, Season/Series 05, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-30 14:31:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12655404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Backwoulds/pseuds/Backwoulds
Summary: Gabriel reveals some earth-shattering truths to the reader.(Mid-season 5, post "Changing Channels")





	Field of Dreams

You're perched on the hood of your beat-to-hell Ford pickup, a bottle of beer pressed between your knees. It's midnight, and you know you shouldn't be drinking on the road, but you're pretty far past the “shoulds” and “shouldn'ts” these days. Thousands of stars are scattered across the sky. Out here, without the light pollution, you swear you can see to the end of the galaxy. It would be beautiful if you could just ignore how small it makes you feel, and how much it reminds you that God has abandoned—

You take a sip of beer and tap the bottle against the grill between your feet. It's good, cold. It's also your fourth beer of the night, so you'd probably think it was delicious even if it was flat and warm. Everything's always okay after a couple of beers, and if it's not, there's always the fifth of whiskey you carry in the cab. And if that doesn't work...

Well, you'll burn that bridge when you cross it.

Right now, all that matters is the nice cold bottle in your hand and the vast expanse of soil and grass around you. Right now, you're untouchable. You're flying pretty damn high, and you'll be just fine as long as you don't look up and remember how completely you are, cosmologically speaking, fucked.

“Pity party's not a great look on you, kid.”

That voice in the stillness of the field is completely unexpected. In an instant, you're on your feet. You've pitched the beer to the side of your truck and put your hand on the gun at the small of your back.

Except there is no gun at the small of your back.

“Looking for this?”

You narrow your eyes. Gabriel stands about ten feet away from you, your gun dangling from the index finger of his right hand.

“Ya know, I never understood these things. They're so... primitive.” He closes the distance between you, expecting you to back down, but you stand your ground. Eventually he's so close you're almost touching. He grins his infuriating grin at you and sets the gun down gingerly on the hood where you have just been sitting.

“What do you want, Gabriel?” you demand, your words sounding a little more slurred than you would like. You grab the gun and tuck it back where it's supposed to be, the weight settling comfortingly in your waistband. It hasn't occurred to you until just now how much of a security blanket that thing is getting to be.

“Those prayers of yours have been giving me a splitting headache all day. You're pinging the crap out of my radar. Figured I might as well come down and see what all the fuss is about.” He shoves his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heels. The look on his face as he watches you has you wishing you had that beer bottle back just so you can lob it at his head.

You laugh, and it isn't a pleasant sound. “I don't pray, Gabriel. I especially don't pray to you.”

He clutches his chest and feigns hurt. “Ouch.” A wry smirk spreads across his features as he leans in, His nose brushes yours and you're fairly certain you're going to have to start throwing punches. “You wound me with your cruel, cruel words.” He pulls away so abruptly, you almost fall after him. What the holy hell is he playing at here? “You might not think they're prayers, kiddo, but your little 'how are we gonna get out of this one, Batman-s' hit me loud and clear.”

Your face falls as you realize even your thoughts aren't safe.

To your surprise, Gabriel's features soften and he looks at you with something that might be pity if you were talking to anybody but the archangel in front of you. The sympathy in his eyes infuriates you and breaks your heart all at the same time. You feel the pinprick sensation of tears at the corners of your eyes as a lump forms in your throat. No, god damn it. You are not going to cry. Not here, not now, and not in front of this dickbag who has no right to look at you with that level of concern on his face.

You take a wide step back, shaking your head. You want to say something nasty to Gabriel, but you're afraid your voice will give you away at that moment. Half of it is those three and a half beers sloshing around in your head and making you extra sensitive to your own hopelessness, but the other half is genuine despair, tempered with just the right amount of exhaustion to make you ready to give it all up and hand the universe over to the forces trying so desperately to destroy it. You're tired. You're fed up. You're ready to throw in the towel. The only thing keeping you going right now is your ability to pretend there's still a way this can turn out okay, but that veneer is getting thinner and thinner with every passing day.

You turn your back on Gabriel as you try desperately to swallow the lump in your throat. One word of discouragement, one tiny insult is all you'd need to get him to flap his little wings and piss off back to the ether. You ball your hands into fists and get yourself ready to heave everything you've got at him.

His hand falls gently on your shoulder. “Hey.”

That's all you need.

You turn on him with sudden fury, throwing his hand off as you do. “Don't you dare sympathize with me, Gabriel. What the hell gives you the right to listen in on my thoughts and show up here with your witty little one-liners and your puppy-dog eyes like you suddenly feel so bad about what's happening?”

“Empathize,” is all he says. His face is carefully blank when he says it. There's no teasing lilt in his voice, no innuendo. Just the word.

“What?” you demand, the wind momentarily dead in your sails.

“I don't sympathize with you, kid. I empathize.” He turns his gaze to the sky, his arms hanging limply at his sides. Nothing about him suggests this is the same person who was chiding you for praying too hard not five minutes ago. He looks just as tired as you feel, and just as ready to hang up his gloves and call it a draw.

No, you remind yourself. This is the guy who created an entire television universe of torture to convince the Winchesters to satisfy his own family issues. This is the monster who killed Dean hundreds of times to prove a point to Sam. This is the angel who skipped out on all of his responsibilities for _millennia_ just so he could avoid the icky feelings that came with having to choose a side. He doesn't have the right to be tired. If he's exhausted, it's his own damn fault for running for so long.

“Don't pretend you understand what this is like for me,” you growl. Your earlier buzz has almost completely worn off. The warm feeling in your belly now is a mixture of righteous anger and desperate sadness, and you're fairly certain you're going to be sick over it later when you're alone. “You've said it yourself: You don't care who wins, you just want it to be over.”

“And you don't?” he interrupts. He's looking at you as if he's seeing you for the first time, studying you like you're a new species he's trying to puzzle out. He seems genuinely shocked that you're not just looking for the fastest ticket out of town.

“No,” you spit back, all vitriol. You shake your head and answer again, softly this time. “No, I don't. Not like this. I want to stop what your brothers have started. I don't want either side to win. I don't want it to happen.”

Gabriel all but snorts at you in disbelief. His expression is as sardonic and unkind as you've ever seen it. “Well, kitten, that just ain't the way it's gonna be.” His voice drops. “When was the last time you tried to convince Sam and Dean to give up on something they'd decided they had to finish?” He gives you a hard, frank stare.

You think back to when this all started, the Winchester family reunion. You think of the boys' determination to find their father at any cost. You think about everything they've willingly gone through since then in the name of family. Soul-selling, demon deals, quite literally going to Hell and back. You realize you don't have an answer to Gabriel's question, because you haven't tried to talk them out of a single thing the last five years. You know better. You've always known better. When you look at Gabriel again, his eyes are burning into yours with such intensity your breath actually catches for a moment.

“Exactly,” he says. He's not even reading your mind at this point; your thoughts are written across your face. “So yeah,” he continues, sounding irritated with himself as he continues to speak, “I decided to listen in on you. Angel radio's a little loud these days for my tastes. And the rest of them don't seem to get it like we do.” A line of confusion appears on your forehead. Gabriel gives you a conspiratorial 'tsk tsk.' “You of all people should understand where I'm coming from, little sis.”

You're immediately on your guard at that last comment. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Your whole face is screwed up into a question mark in spite of your best attempts to appear unflustered.

Gabriel rolls his eyes at you so hard you're sure he's able to see the back of his own head. He tilts his entire head back and you're almost worried for a second he's going to snap his neck in his exasperation. “Oh, come on!” He rounds on you and closes the distance between the two of you again. You think for a second about backing away, but there's nothing actually threatening about his movements. He's desperate, not aggressive. Trying to make you see something. Trying to get your attention. Well, he's damn well got it now. “How many times have you had to watch those two knuckleheads go at it, huh? How many times have you packed your bags in the middle of the night and sworn that you were going to get away from it all only to wake up the next morning and feel guilty as hell you were even thinking about it?”

When he finishes, he's walked you up against the hood of your truck without either one of you noticing until it's already happened. You're too confused now to be angry. You find yourself wishing for that fourth beer again, but mostly to silence the alarm bells sounding in your head. Of course you've thought about giving it all up, throwing in for an apple-pie-Leave-it-to-Beaver life in the suburbs. No more monsters, no more demons, no more Winchesters. You've thought about it so desperately at times that you've woken yourself up at night, muscles aching with the sheer desire to get away, tears drying on your cheeks. And yes, you've even packed your bags, just like Gabriel suggested, and planned to light out before either of the boys woke up, planned to drive to the other side of the country just to get away from them and the life you've all chosen (made) for yourselves. Nobody, however, is supposed to know any of that. You've never told a soul, not even in your drunkest moments. Not even when you were sure you'd been talking in your sleep.

Clearly, the shock is spelled out in your expression, because Gabriel softens again for a moment, meeting your eyes. “I've been you,” he chides, hardening back up as he speaks. “I AM you, get it?”

Your voice is quieter than you'd like it to be when you repeat yourself, “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

He answers with another pointed eye roll. “Say it with me, class: There is no such thing as coincidence.” His words are slow and deliberate. You feel yourself beginning to anger, picking up on Gabriel's obvious irritation with you. “There's a reason you're always stuck with the Wonder Twins, slugger. Why do you think you weren't excused from that little Pleasantville exercise a few months ago? I could've sent you off to the Bahamas for the afternoon while I zapped them into TV Land."

“You haven't gotten away from them because there IS no getting away. No matter what we do, you and I always end up in the exact same place. We don't get to escape it. They have their roles, and you and I have ours. You have a part to play in this too, baby sister. Don't think you don't.”

Your head is spinning. What the hell is he trying to say? He's forcing you to hold his gaze now, but you're not sure you'd look away even if he gave you the chance. He's telling you something. Something important. Something you need to understand. Little sister. Why does he keep calling you that?

It slowly dawns on you. “You're telling me I'm a vessel?”

The look on his face says you've only got half of the puzzle. You're a vessel, all right, but it's not as simple as that. How could it be?

_I've been you._

The teasing light is gone from Gabriel's eyes, replaced by a hard flint stare.

_I AM you, get it?_

The realization hits you. “You're telling me I'm your vessel.” All the air is sucked out of the room and for a moment you think you're actually going to pass out.

“Ding ding ding.” That sardonic look is back on Gabriel's face, but there's a tightness around his mouth that suggests this isn't just fun and games to him.

You continue staring at him, willing him to take it back. He doesn't move. “Are you kidding?” Your mouth and throat have gone completely dry. You're not sure where your voice is coming from, or if it's your voice at all.

“Wish I were.” At that, at least, he looks sincere.

A vessel. You are a vessel.

You are _GABRIEL'S_ vessel, a voice in the back of your mind reminds you. The world swims in your vision. Gabriel becomes a blur of colors for a moment before coming back to himself. You put your hand on the hood of your trusty Ford and try to convince yourself of its solidity beneath your palm. It's real, you tell yourself. This is real. I am real. This moment is real and I am really, truly a vessel. I am a vessel of an archangel of the lord.

“So you get where I'm coming from,” Gabriel's voice breaks through your thoughts. “You want this to be over as much as I do.” He's soft and sympathetic again and you wish he weren't.

“Not like this,” you protest, slowly shaking your head. “There's gotta be something—”

“There's nothing!” Gabriel suddenly shouts, surprising you with his anger. “You know it because I know it. There isn't anything any of us can do except get it over with. So get it over with.” He's pleading with you now, and your stomach turns. The desperation in his voice is too much. You turn away from him and try to calm your racing heart by slowly flexing and relaxing your open palms agains the cool metal of the Ford. You squeeze your eyes shut and breathe.

“Why?” you eventually ask, after what feels like an eternity of silence. You're not even sure he's still there, but you need to ask. Even if you're only asking the darkness.

“Why what?” His voice is only barely above a whisper. You want to turn back to look at him, but you're terrified of what might be on his face to accompany that voice. You're spinning out, badly, and that might be just the thing that sends you howling into the night.

“Why are you telling me this?” you whisper back. Your eyes are open now. You're staring down at your hands, concentrating on your short, dirty fingernails and torn cuticles. Hunter's hands, your dad always said. Hunter's hands on a hunter's truck.

“Look, kid...” he starts, and is quickly at a loss for words. “I meant what I said. This crap is horrible. I hate everything about it. I hate knowing how it's got to go down.” God damn, you wish you weren't so afraid to look at him right now. “And then I heard you pray. Or scream into the void. Or whatever you want to call it. It was like hearing my own thoughts.” You feel him move to your side, but you keep your focus on your hands. Out of the corner of your eye, you see him lift himself up onto the bumper and take a seat on the hood. Any other time, you'd tear him a new one for the offense, but right now you can't do anything but listen.

“It's the bloodline, you know. The whole 'vessel' thing is a bloodline trait. Just like it was always going to be Dean and Sam, it was always supposed to be you.”

You finally risk a glance up at him, but he's not looking at you anymore. Gabriel is staring up at the sky again, looking at the same stars you were fascinated by back when you were still just a simple hunter all those long minutes ago. “I could feel you driving yourself crazy wondering 'Why me?,' same as I did. Michael and Lucifer don't seem to get it, but we're all connected to our vessels. There's no stopping that, no matter how many times one of you meat sacks says no to us.”

You study his face for a moment, trying to make sense of everything he's telling you. “So if you hadn't witness protection-ed yourself, you'd be...”

“All up in your business,” he finishes. The words are playful, but the tone is serious. He's resting his forearms on his inner thighs, perfectly mimicking your position earlier that evening minus the beer. Whether he means to or not, the effect is eerie. “Doesn't change anything,” he sniffs. “I mean, I'm not going to be wearing you out any time soon, but you and your ancestor here,” he gestures to his body, “are still my only-trulies. You and I are inextricably linked.” He draws the last two words out on his tongue.

You turn around so you're leaning against the grill next to Gabriel, facing the same direction as he is. “What does that mean for me?”

“Nothing?” he quips, “Everything? It's going to be lights out around here soon enough anyway.”

You tilt your head up and gaze at the millions of stars winking back at you. You're small. Infinitesimal. You're a speck of nothing in the universe. And, no use denying it now, you, vessel to the archangel Gabriel, are totally, irrevocably, cosmologically fucked. You blink back tears.

“Sorry, kiddo.” He's still not looking at you. The two of you are quite a pair: just an angel and his vessel, sitting on the beat-up hood of an old Ford pickup, staring despairingly into the cosmos.

You both sit in silence for a few minutes, letting the hopelessness of the moment wash over you. You finally work up the nerve to turn and face him when the stirring of wings cuts through the quiet like a knife. Gabriel is gone, and you're alone in the field again with nothing but your gun and your truck.

And you remember the fifth of whiskey in the cab.

 


End file.
